Homeschooling has pretty much become the most important aspect of my life now. I used to binge on amazon tv shows and sew a little but now all of that has taken a back seat to the education of our kids.
I bought a small white board because we were hammering through paper.
Capri is 7 and Cali is 5 so I must say I”m still pretty new to all of this. I started this endeavor on our last boat, Salty.
Back when the girls were 3 and 4 I decided to go with the Pre School package offered by Sonlight, it’s basically a very comprehensive library of books. We are not a religious family and even though Sonlight is Christian based it was still a good fit for us. The girls were happy to sit for hours looking through the books and me reading.
The following year we were planning on doing the Northwest Passage so I needed to have another curriculum in a box. I was use to Sonlight’s setup so I continued with them for another year. This time things had changed, the girls weren’t as happy to sit and listen to book after book. They found the copywork daunting and the math difficult. It was a pretty big leap to go from only books to worksheets and multiple subjects. We gave a lot of the subjects a break and picked the brunt of it back up 2 months later and they were far more receptive. Looking back now I see that our 4 and 5 year old weren’t ready for most of Sonlights subject matter and heavy reading. I would recommend starting Sonlights Kindergarten package when your child is 6, no sooner.
you may notice the smartie at the top of her page. A little bit of chocolate goes a long way when it comes to our kids education.
Cali is now 5 and Capri just turned 7, we do history, geography and astronomy jointly and Cali does kindergarten for the remaining subjects and Capri grade 1.
This time around I decided to go out on my own and pull some subject matter from Sonlight and others from Timberdoodle. So far the girls seem to be enjoying the work, not to say we still don’t have our bad days.
I have made many mistakes along the way but I still think homeschooling and bringing our kids up a tad alternatively is the best thing going.
At the moment we do school work from 9am-11am and try and fit in extra reading time throughout the day and they get to use their iPads after lunch for some educational apps. We don’t follow a Monday to Friday school week, we learn when we can because I know there are days that we’re either on passage or just have something more fun to do.
Crew is a bit of a trouble maker during school time but in the most part he either hangs with Carl, plays lego or makes a mess with (homemade) play dough
We are currently half way through most of our subjects this year and I haven’t decided what to do next year (Grade 1 and 2). We want to raise readers so I may venture back to Sonlight, we’ll see.
I find homeschooling extremely challenging. We have two girls (and a boy who’s 2) that are complete opposites. We are also dealing with some learning difficulties that I prefer not to go into but this has made our train jump the track more than a few times.
It has been hard to transition back to the boat from Maine, homeschool from land has it’s positives and negatives. I miss our library and reliable fast internet but I don’t miss all the extra curricular activities you find yourself suddenly enrolled in. Boat schooling is simple schooling. We cherish the books we have on board and don’t find ourselves comparing our kids to other homeschool kids like we were in Maine. It’s just less stressful, less congested, more quality.
Below I’ll list all the workbooks and subjects we’re covering.
History:The Story of the World
SOTW come in an audio book version which would be great for kids that enjoy audio stories. My kids tend to zone out too much with audio books.
Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy with workbook. This is Christian based and I do skip over some of the bible quotes but all in all good fun. The year before I went with a Sonlights science option but found we were learning a different subject every other day and the kids weren’t understanding the lessons, we were just brushing on each topic.
The notebook includes fun activities for each section and worksheets.
Geography:Daily Geography Practice, Grade 1
Math: Math U See, Primer (Cali) Alpha (Capri). The girls were struggling with Math so I opted for a more hands on approach. MUS comes with blocks that work alongside of their workbooks. So far so good.
MUS also comes with a DVD (or online) that gives you a lesson outline for each section. The kids and I watch it together.
Language Arts: First Language Lessons 
Other tid bits:
Childrens Bible – gifted
Draw & Write Children’s Journal
Assortment of I Can Read books
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary for Children
Ipad Apps: Reading Eggs (needs wifi), Hooked on Phonics (needs wifi), Math Town, Montessori Crosswords, Wordplay, Mathseeds (K,1), Epic (can save books to read offline), Teach Monster, Wet Dry Try, Endless Reader.
We have a bunch of other games, books and odd pieces on the boat that all aid in their eduction (play dough, early reader books, alphabet bingo, cards etc.)
In a few months time I will be shopping around again for Grade 2 resources. I’m on the fence whether or not to go with a curriculum package or make a program up myself. I still like Sonlight so who knows, I may give them another go. Have no idea how I’ll get all the books to the boat, that’s a problem for another time.
Links:
Sonlight Homeschool Curriculum
Timberdoodle Homeschool Curriculum
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about our boat schooling.
I didn’t get any of these materials at a discount (wish I did) for mentioning them. I use Sonlight and Timberdoodle simply because they are a good fit for our family.
I also have pictures of them crying while schooling but I like to make believe that all days are like these.
I bet you’re benefitting from the home schooling too by relearning what you learned at their age but forgotten. What a beautiful lifestyle you have!!
~NanSeaCay~
Totally! The Math U See books are a little tough sometimes to wrap my head around because it’s not how I learnt math and it seems backwards at times. I like to think of myself as just the observer. I point them in the right direction and they do all the learning through the texts and experiences.
Have you heard of Brainetics… you might enjoy it for you and then have a new way to approach the children about math. Helped me. Fun too… til my brain explodes, then have to let it recover.
I will, thanks for the suggestion. There are soo many educational products our there for kids and it’s hard to weed through the crap ones. Put it on my list 🙂
Love this Carly. Thank you for helping throw a line to future cruisers by sharing your experience!
Thanks Behan, means a lot coming from you. I always love checking out homeschooling blogs but they rarely list what they actually use. I know now why, it’s a pain in the butt linking everything 🙂
Hi girl, when my boys were taking their SATs there were a brother/sister that scored the highest in reading comprehension and related tests. Their Mom had read to them every morning all of their lives.
After watching my three boys have great years and years they struggled with classes I realized a few things.
If I had home schooled them through 7th or 8 th grade their learning would had equaled what the schools taught them. The struggles and the occasional feelings of being less than would not had happened.
All 3 boys have a 4yr degree and 2 have a wee bit more. ?
Be easy on yourself. It’s just adding & subtracting, teach that in the kitchen while cooking or with deck boards. A sliced pizza is perfect for teaching %.
Schools no longer teach cursive so kids can learn words from signs and packages.
Learn to write neatly by writing Grandparents and keeping a daily journal if it’s only a few lines.
Grammar is important but if your family speaks well they will pick up grammar easier.
Save your money for now, your world has all the tools you need.
Do not stress girl, you’ve got this.
You are so kind. It is bloody stressful homeschooling, I’m scared of ruining our kids but I know deep down this is what’s best for them. Don’t think I’m brave enough to dump all lessons and go with the unschooling thing, I may miss something important. Everyday we are becoming better parents and teachers.
Yes you do what makes you sleep good at night. The worry, real and imagined is heavy.
I’ve watched boys that began attending the private preparatory Catholic HS that had been home schooled. They did quite well and continued on getting their 4 yr college degrees.
The difference in these young men is how they live their lives today.
Both are employed well but they both are working on their companies. They have bought and sold properties and are independent thinkers.
Try not to second guess yourself, all will be well.
You children are very lucky to have parents you.
What an excellent education you are providing!!! You are preparing those young ones to be bright, caring adventurers! What more could one ask for in an education???!!!! I will look forward to the updates. Good luck on the learning difficulties. They are a challenge wherever you are. I am confident that with your can-do spirit, it will all work out eventually.
Thanks Cindy! I have learned that everybody likes a label but kids are kids and not all are the same. I’m glad that I have spotted the issues early and can tailor her lessons to suit her and not the masses.
The kids are having a great time but somedays I feel they think they’re on vacation.
We had one of our 3 with a few minor learning difficulties. When it got to the stage of me in tears and threatening to leave, we decided to stay put for a year and put them in school. Luckily, a very good teacher, and sorted him right out (he was at the end of grade 1). He was slightly easier to manage to teach after that, but always a challenge. I just worried about maths and english, and reading, and did not stress too much about the other bits and pieces. One thing we found they missed out on once at school was ball games using fines motor skills, and team games (can give that a miss). I too would like to follow some organised course or set of books for maths and english, so as not to mis out anything. Keep up the god work.
I meant keep up the good work! I would find the religious aspect and background to some of the books too narrow minded and conservative perhaps.
I just wish sometimes they had some time in a proper classroom so they understood that kids are in school all-day-long, they complain when I want an hour a day, everyday. Not a lot to ask. I can deal with the learning difficulty but the negative attitude sometimes gets me down. Maybe we should start doing school in the evening so I can drink wine at the same time.
For a literature focused free-curriculum have you looked at Ambleside online? It sounds like it could be what you’re looking for: reading heavy, free curriculum, guidance, active forums, schedule plans for the year, and freedom to find your own books at your own price. https://www.amblesideonline.org
Thanks Stacey, I’ll give it a look!